antipattern

An entrepreneur is someone who changes the behavior of people.

The great thing about this definition is that it allows for entrepreneurship completely divorced from the organization structure (typically a company), motive (deriving profit, social good, fun, etc), or scale (from a few people to the whole of humanity).

Of course, the most common configuration is a for-profit startup targeting a niche market.

But many configurations are possible.

An eco-entrepreneur might employ a global structure consisting of many individuals and organizations with a for-profit motive, and the purpose of saving the planet (humanity scale).

Notice that the definition does not include a definition of “goodness”. Clearly, some entrepreneurs might have an evil intention, but it seems unlikely that it would scale, so we don't need to include it in the definition.

Facebook clearly changed the behavior of pretty much all of humanity, but many people argue not in a good way. When you get to the humanity scale, all sorts of unintended effects are to be expected. You might start out good but end up evil.

Notice that the definition does not mention how behavior change is accomplished. No technology is mentioned.

In fact, at the risk of upsetting a lot of techies, I am afraid that technology is most likely NOT the reason why behavior change.

The entrepreneur deals with people and behavior. He understands how it all fits together.

The strategy of educating a person, and expecting their behavior to change, most often does not work. For example, most people believe in climate change, but their behavior do not change. The penguins are dying, everyone knows, few care.

So what causes behavior change?

Feelings. Emotions.

When you feel nothing, nothing happens. No change. Because this is how the human brain is wired up.

The savvy entrepreneur knows this. She thinks how to connect with people on an emotional level. In contrast, the technical entrepreneur starts with the technology and then tries to find a purpose for it – which is really the wrong way around.

OK, having set the stage appropriately, lets invent a business to illustrate how it all works.

Lets say we would like to save the penguins, we want to make a profit, and we want to do it at the humanity scale.

Lets call our company Save-the-Penguins, because I can't think of a more appropriate name right now.

For this to have the maximum emotional impact, I am afraid we will have to do things a bit different. So steel yourself.

Our company, based in Antarctica, will KILL ONE PENGUIN EVERY DAY.

Yes, chop off its head. Chop-chop.

The event will be broadcast daily, live, on YouTube.

The outrage about our efforts will be tremendous. Yes, emotions will run high. The publicity will be absolutely crazy. Kids will be crying tonight. There will be death threats.

We will be the most evil company in the world.

This is what we want.

There will be a fallout. We will be banned from Youtube in 48 hours, but the chopping will continue indefinitely.

However ... there is a simple out for humanity.

If on a given day, we receive $100K in donations, the penguin of the next day will be saved. No chop-chop. Lucky penguin.

If we don't meet our target for two days, two penguins will be killed. Three days, three penguins, etc.

We take monthly donations, and you get a poster. Our profit is 10% of the revenue to run the operations and keep the lawyers paid.

The rest of the income is donated to the cause of saving the penguins. Our estimated revenue is around $36M per year. We expect to save millions of penguins every year. Our business plans include expanding to other “verticals” – pretty much all endangered animals.

If humanity does not care, penguins will die. It is your choice.

You want your kids to sleep tonight, right?

We are the entrepreneurs of the future, saving the planet one penguin at a time.